A couple weeks ago my friend and I were shopping with our 2 year old girls in Old Navy. I was looking at something on her phone only to see Ady fall in my peripheral next to the clothing rack near her little buddy who was under another one. She stood up and looked just fine but then when she turned to look at her friend, there was blood. Lots of blood. She was balling her head out and kleenex didn't seem to stop the bleeding. We filed an incident report with Old Navy and because she wasn't crying anymore I decided to take her to urgent care just down the road. Upon arrival, the doctor took one look and sent us on to the ER. Thus began my 9.5 hour visit to the ER with a 2 year old.
We of course had to wait a bit at the ER before seeing the doctor but I could tell immediately that he was on the fence about doing the stitching and recommended we see the plastic surgeon on hand. I said a huge YES right away because seriously, if he was on the fence about doing the repair then NO... you won't touch my baby's face. We had to wait a while for the plastic surgeon to come down but when she did she was absolutely great. She assured me it was a normal gash and that it would heal overtime and gave me tons of information on how to help minimize scarring. BUT, the worst part was that I'd have to hold her down to be sedated again. I'm sorry, all the sickness in the world doesn't compare to holding your child while they go limp in your arms. It's terrible. But whatever it takes for my little worm.
So then we waited. And waited. And waited for an OR to open up. Thankfully they moved us to a room with a TV for the kids to watch and daddy and Drew brought up the ipad for them to play as well. The issue was that she couldn't eat meaning we couldn't eat in front of her. thankfully Derek gave Drew some snacks before heading over around 5 making holding dinner off until 8 more manageable.
It was around then that they wheeled her back for the surgery and we waited. Of course she screamed wanting daddy after we made the decision that I would take her back so that was fun.
The surgery took about an hour because she spent a bit of extra time trimming the skin to make it as smooth as possible. We then got to see her in post-OP while we waited for her to wake up. Seeing as this was about 9pm, we decided that Derek would take Drew home while I waited with Ady. He had school the next day and needed to get some sleep and Ady could be recovering for who knows how long.
Finally around 10:30 she started to wake up. They warned me that generally the toddlers wake up screaming and very upset and my angel woke up barely making a peep, even smiling at the nurses. She definitely just wanted to cuddle and I squeezed her up with my entire body. We were discharged around 11:45 and by then she was ready to party and would not go to sleep when we got home. Thankfully daddy rocked her for an hour while an exhausted momma went to bed.
She's been in absolutely NO pain since and we have already had a checked up with the surgeon saying it looked great. It does have to be covered by a steri-strip for a while, then we have to keep silicon on it for months. All of this should help minimize the scar. Although it's terrible that her perfectly plump cheek is where this happened, we are so thankful it didn't get her eye or on a more prominent part of her face. I'm hoping if we do everything we can now that it won't be too noticeable by the time she's in high school.
If you scroll down there is a picture of the gash so you've been warned if you don't like blood!
